Part C: Changes in Loyalty Andrew Baker was a soldier in the 22nd North Carolina Infantry, C.S.A., Pettigrew's 
brigade. He participated in the brutal fighting that opened the battle on July 1 and in the culmination on July 3. He 
wrote about his experience on the final day of fighting for the magazine of a Confederate veterans' organization. 
The Capt. W. T. Magruder to whom he referred was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and 
fought for the Union as a captain in the 1st U.S. Cavalry until October 1, 1862. Magruder then joined the 
Confederate army, became a captain in the 26th North Carolina Infantry, and died at Gettysburg at the hands of 
his former comrades. Baker wrote about that action: 
When we reached to within one hundred yards of the plank fence, which stood on the opposite side of the road 
passing the cemetery to that of the stone fence, the officers of the Eleventh Mississippi had been largely killed or 
wounded, and the officer who seemed to be in command was Capt. John V. Moore, of the University Grays. He was 
then in front of Company D, endeavoring to hold the regiment back in line with the troops on our right. I hallooed to 
him, saying: ' John, for heaven's sake give the command to charge.' He replied that he could not take the 
responsibility. I then, without authority, gave the command myself, which was promptly repeated and responded 
to, at which time a run was made for the fence and over it. Just after getting over the fence, and when about half 
way across the road, I was shot down. The balance of the command which had not been killed or wounded rushed 
on and jumped the stone fence, charging rapidly to the top of Cemetery Ridge, in line with the Twenty-sixth North 
Carolina on the right. 
Just after I had fallen I looked to my right, where a little house stood, just against which the end of the stone fence 
rested on either side. Behind this house some ten or twelve of the Twenty-sixth North Carolina boys for a moment 
halted, with Capt. W. T. Magruder, who had been formerly a colonel of cavalry in the U.S. army, and who had 
resigned after the emancipation proclamation and had joined our army, said to them: ' Men, remember your 
mothers, wives, and sisters at home, and do not halt here.' All responded in a moment, and rushed on to rejoin the 
regiment, then going to the top of Cemetery Heights. Capt. Magruder himself leaped the stone fence on the 
western side of the house, and was shot down at once, either as he went over the fence or just after getting over it. 
Excerpted from Andrew J. Baker, "Tribute to Capt. Magruder and Wife," Confederate Veteran Magazine (November 
1898): 507 


